Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [220]
Lanark entered an office with two desks and a secretary typing at a table in the corner. A tall bald man sat telephoning on the edge of the nearest desk. He smiled at Lanark and pointed to an easy chair, saying, “He must be suffering from folie de grandeur. Provosts are buffers between us and the voters; they aren’t supposed to do things. But nobody wants a riot, of course.”
At the desk behind him a stout man leaned back smoking a pipe. Lanark sat looking through the window at the floodlit roof of a building across the square. A dome at one end had a glittering wind-vane shaped like a galleon. The tall man put the receiver down, saying, “That’s that. My name is Gilchrist—I’m very pleased to meet you.”
They shook hands and Lanark saw the council mark on Gilchrist’s brow. They sat down in chairs beside a coffee table and Gilchrist said, “We want coffee, I think. Black or white, Lanark? See to that, Miss Maheen. I hear you are looking for professional employment, Lanark.”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve no definite idea of the kind of work you want.”
“Correct. I’m more concerned about the salary.”
“Would you like to work here?”
Lanark looked round the room. The secretary was attending to an electric percolator on top of a filing cabinet. The man behind the other desk had a large, dolorous, clownish face and winked at Lanark with no change of expression. Lanark said, “I’m very willing to consider it.”
“Good. You mentioned salary. Unluckily salaries are a vexed question with us. It’s impossible to pay a monthly or yearly sum when we can’t even measure the minutes and hours. Until the council sends us the decimal clocks it’s been promising for so long Unthank is virtually part of the intercalendrical zone. At present the city is kept going by force of habit. Not by rules, not by plans, but by habit. Nobody can rule with an elastic tape measure, can they?”
Lanark shook his head impatiently and said, “I’ve a family to feed. What can you offer me?”
“Credit. Members of our staff receive a Quantum credit card. That’s much more useful than money.”
“Will it let me rent a comfortable home for three people?” “Easily. You could even buy a home. The energy to pay for it would be deducted from your future.”
“Then I’ll be glad to work here.”
“I should explain the range of our activities.”
“No need. I’ll do whatever I’m told.”
Gilchrist smiled and shook his head, saying “Social ignorance is only a virtue in the manufacturing classes. We professionals must understand the organism as a whole. That is our burden and our pride. It justifies our bigger incomes.”
“Blethers!” said the stout man at the other desk. “Who in this building understands the organism as a whole? You and me and an old woman upstairs, perhaps, but the rest have forgotten. They were told, but they’ve forgotten.”
“Pettigrew is a cynic,” said Gilchrist, laughing.
“A lovable cynic,” muttered Pettigrew. “Remember that. Pettigrew is everybody’s lovable cynic.”
The secretary laid a tray of coffee things on the table. Gilchrist carried his cup to the window, sat on the ledge and said oracularly, “Employment. Stability. Surroundings. Three offices, yet properly understood they are the same. Employment ensures stability. Stability lets us reshape our surroundings. The improved surroundings become a new condition of employment. The snake eats its tail. Nothing has precedence. This great building—this centre of all centres, this tower of welfare—exists to maintain full employment, reasonable stability and decent surroundings.”
“Animals,” said Pettigrew. “We deal with animals here. The scruff. The scum. The lowest of the low.”
“Pettigrew is referring to the fact that there are not enough jobs and houses for everyone. Naturally—as in all freely competing societies—the unemployed and homeless